Aanraders - interesting

An unpleasant incident took place last week at the international airport of Cardiff, the capital of Wales. On Thursday night, the customs officers of the airport detained and searched Ksenia Sukhinova, the winner of Miss Russia and Miss World beauty pageants held in 2007 and 2008.

Sukhinova, 21, said in an interview with WalesOnline that the officers were examining her luggage for an hour, as if they considered her a terrorist. Ksenia said that it was a first time she had such an experience and that she could not find an explanation for the incident.

Ksenia Sukhinova arrived in Wales as a guest of honor to participate at Miss Wales beauty contest, which took place there during the weekend. The woman said that there were no dangerous things in her bags.

Two 22-year-old girls from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan who have been “prepared” to become prostitutes are now released from slavery in the Russian city of Novosibirsk.

According to the police the criminals were going to sell two 22-year-old girls on July 2. And the most disturbing fact was that the human trafficking was taking place not somewhere on the outskirts of the city, but in the centre of it, not far from the Karl Marx metro station.

Russian women have always stood out of the crowd. They can put on large sunglasses and a baseball cap, hide blond hair under it, and walk around like you’re some Western tourist, but still someone will come up to you and talk to you in Russian. If you respond in English, they’ll be very surprised, as it’s often thought that Russians don’t know a foreign language. So what do foreigners think about Russians? What can they say about Russian women?

On Spanish and Italian resorts Russian speech already overshadows local dialects. In Turkey and Egypt Russians and Ukrainians have almost superseded Germans and Italians, at least, the latter prefer to rest in hotels with just their countrymen.

For many foreigners Russian women are very attractive. Foreign men often dream to have an affair with a Russian woman; some of them even later convince that the fleeting affair is one of the best memories in their life. Some people, that might have had negative experience with Russian women, on the other hand, are scared of them. Dating sites are full of ads saying that a well-off foreigner is ready to marry a woman form Russia even if she has children.

Russian scientists have finished the first large-scale research of gene pool of the Russian people. The report on the results of the study is expected to be published soon. The report might bring about dramatic consequences both for Russia and the world order.

Two 19th century figures were separated by continents, but brought together by a common belief in liberty.

The 16th US President Abraham Lincoln and Russian Tsar Alexander II faced similar challenges and shared triumphs. From half a world away the two leaders kept in touch, expressing their passions and policies for a better future of Russia and the United States.

“It was mainly a correspondence between ministers,” says Aleksandr Petrov, a Senior fellow at the Institute of World History in Moscow. He adds that the naval ministries of both countries were trying to find a way to strengthen economic cooperation, military solutions, and to make the world a safer place.

“Aleksander II really believed in a free world…he just abolished serfdom, and two years later Lincoln made his famous speech,” says Petrov.

The Gettysburg address is probably now one of the most famous speeches in history:

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth
on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so
dedicated, can long endure.”

A monument to the late perestroika-era rock star Viktor Tsoi is to be erected in the singer’s hometown of St. Petersburg, the local fontanka.ru news website said on Thursday.

A competition to find a design for the statue is to be announced tomorrow at a news conference organized by the Memory of Viktor Tsoi foundation, set up the singer’s relatives and friends. The idea to erect a statue in honor of the Kino vocalist and guitarist has the support of city authorities.

Tsoi, an ethnic Korean, died in August 1990 at the age of 27 in a car crash in the then-Soviet republic of Latvia.

The tradition of Maslenitsa dates back to pagan times, when Russian folk would bid farewell to winter and welcome spring.

As with many ancient holidays, Maslenitsa (the stress being on the first syllable) has a dual ancestry: pagan and Christian.

On the pagan side, Maslenitsa was celebrated on the vernal equinox day. It marked the welcoming of spring, and was all about the enlivening of nature and bounty of sunny warmth.

On the Christian side, Maslenitsa was the last week before the onset of Lent (fasting which precedes Easter), giving the last chance to bask in worldly delights. Once Lent itself begins, a strictly kept fast excludes meat, fish, dairy products, and eggs. Furthermore, parties, secular music, dancing and other distractions from the spiritual life are also strictly prohibited.

In the eyes of the church Maslenitsa is not just a week of merrymaking, but a whole step-by-step procedure to prepare oneself for a long and exhausting fasting, which, if observed properly, may be a real challenge.

As the traditional week of feasting in Russia, called Maslenitsa, is drawing to a close, celebrations are culminating throughout the country.

Time-rich in customs, Maslenitsa celebrates the end of winter. Initially a pagan rite, it’s been included into Orthodox tradition as a time of preparing for the Great Lent.

On Sunday, people gathered across Russia to enjoy traditional pancakes as well as to participate in a number of activities connected with the Feast, such as fist-fighting, a type of wrestling, and pole-climbing.

Like many Americans who grew up in the twilight of the Cold War, my first memories of Sergei Eisenstein’s film Alexander Nevsky come from the Tom Clancy novel Red Storm Rising. In Tom Clancy’s vision of World War III set in the 1980s, the Soviet Union broadcasts the film to stir up the Russian people just before the Red Army tanks start rolling into West Germany.

While young Russians still learn about Prince Alexander Nevsky in school, many of them are probably familiar with this name because of Russia’s own version of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actorand star of popular action flicks like Moscow Heat. (Excerpt from Mr. Nevsky’s Russia Today TV interview aired in January 2007, spoken in his best Ah-nuld accent: “I didn’t want to play Russian bad guys in Hollywood. I wanted to play a Russian action hero. I say let the Polish and Czech actors play Russian bad guys in Hollywood movies.”)

Today happens to be the 765th anniversary of the climactic battle on the frozen Lake Peipus depicted in the film. Two questions a modern viewer might ask are: has this example of historic propaganda from Josef Stalin’s favorite director aged well? And does it present any themes relevant to post-Soviet Russia?

In Russia, a land of cruel winters and even more unforgiving strong drink, legends of homemade hangover cures are treated with an air of great seriousness. Peter the Great is rumored to have favored a steaming bowl of cabbage soup and a walk around the palace in a pair of his favorite valenki — thick wool boots long popular in the wilds of the Russian countryside for their supposedly restorative properties.

These days, valenki are making a stylish comeback in Russia’s capital, with Moscow’s young and fashionable wearing them out in the city’s cafes and nightclubs. Some of the most popular are made by Olga Chernikova, an accidental designer who began making valenki as a hobby five years ago, when she returned to Russia after spending several years in Nigeria.

Now she produces a few hundred pairs of the boots a year, which she makes by hand at her apartment in downtown Moscow, and her first collection, at Russian Fashion Weekin 2007, sold out in a few days.

“At first, a lot of people think that they’re something for the village or the collective farm,” Ms. Chernikova said of the boots. “But why shouldn’t we remember that we’re Russians? The Scottish have their kilts, and we have our valenki.”

Her cramped, four-room apartment, just steps from the Belorussky train station, doubles as both a workshop and showroom, with dozens of pairs of valenki in varying stages of completion scattered around on shelves and on the floor. Ms. Chernikova has help from her uncle, who supplies the wool from his village about 280 miles from Moscow, and from her mother, who sits at the kitchen table and knits patterns on the boots.

A pair of Ms. Chernikova’s plain boots in grey felt sells for 2,000 rubles (about $70, at 29 rubles to the dollar), and more intricate designs, like a pair stitched with the 1960s-era insignia of the Soviet Navy, cost from 2,000 rubles and up.

“They’re great for when your legs are tired and dragging,” Ms. Chernikova said, as she slid her feet into a pair of cream-colored boots that came to just below the knee. Many clients, she said, have developed something of a dependency on the wool boots and their supposed healing powers. Ms. Chernikova said she couldn’t sit down to eat at the dinner table without a pair of valenki on her feet. “My body needs them, you could say,” she said.

Ms. Chernikova’s wool valenki are sold in clothing boutiques throughout Moscow, and by appointment at her apartment near the Belorussky train station; rusvalenki@list.ru.

Rubin FC won their first Russian Premier League title after beating Moscow Region side Saturn 2-1 on Sunday.

The victory means that Rubin are now 10 points clear of second-placed side CSKA Moscow, with only three games left before the end of the Russian championship.

The title goes to the republic of Tatarstan in the year that the club marks its 50th anniversary.

Rubin’s win means that now it is the third time, after Alania Vladikavkaz in 1995 and Zenit St. Petersburg last year, that a team from outside Moscow has won the Russian championship.

For the first time this year, the top three teams in the Russian Premier League will qualify for the 2009-2010 Champions League. The top two clubs will go straight into the group stages, with the third-placed team starting in the second qualifying round. The fourth- and fifth-placed teams will enter the UEFA Cup, while the bottom two sides are relegated.

Russia’s 2004 and 2008 Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva has been nominated for the 2008 Waterford Crystal European Athlete of the Year Trophy.

The 26-year-old Russian, who has broken the world pole vault record 24 times, most recently at the Olympic Games in Beijing, won the trophy in 2005 after becoming the first woman to clear 5 meters while setting a total of nine world records that year alone.

The trophy was introduced in 1993 by the European Athletics Association and is awarded based on the results of public voting.

This year, a total of 39 athletes have been nominated for the award, 19 in the men’s category and 20 for the women’s prize.

Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev urged the country on Friday to develop tourism. He was speaking during a meeting with the mayors of the so-called Golden Ring towns around Moscow.
“The historical wealth of our cultural heritage is a truly grandiose resource for developing tourism,” Medvedev said.

Medvedev said that Russia earned 833 billion rubles ($35.6 billion) from tourism last year, and that the tourist industry employed over one million people nationwide.

Many tourists, especially from Western countries, are put off trips to Russia by visa requirements.

Russia is celebrating National Flag Day. Almost 1,000 people gathered in the centre of Moscow at noon to sing the Russian anthem. Organisers handed out a large number of flags and white, blue and red balloons to be released into air.
Flag Day has been an annual celebration since 1994.

“Russia’s flag will always symbolise stability, reliability and security,” said State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov. “Respect to national symbols is the most important element of civic consciousness. It incorporates the knowledge of your history, love of your people and your country and the intention to make your own contribution to the country’s development.”

The white-blue-red tricolour was initially introduced in Russia in the 17th century by Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union it was officially re-established on August 22, 1991.

In 2000 Russia passed a law which allows its display only for official purposes and on national holidays.